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Palliative care enhances the quality of life of people with a life-limiting illness. It does this by preventing and relieving suffering.

In addition to helping the patient, palliative care helps a family cope during a family member’s illness and death, and during the grief process.
Palliative care may include:

Help with decisions about treatments

Expert medical care to help with pain and other symptoms at home or in hospital

End-of-life care

Social, psychological, emotional and spiritual support

Occupational therapy, physiotherapy and social work

Music therapy

Support for family, friends and caregivers

Trained volunteers to visit with patients

Information about financial, legal and other services

Bereavement support

Many people think that palliative care is only provided in the last weeks and months of life, when curative treatments are no longer available. A palliative approach to care can help people early in their illness. It can start at diagnosis, when treatments are taking place and there may still be many months and years left to live.

Palliative care is not necessarily provided by a team that only becomes involved at the end of your life. It is ideally provided by the people who know patients the most working together with experts when they are needed.

Halifax area (not including IWK Health Centre) and West Hants* The office at Dartmouth General Hospital has moved to room 1512 during renovations
Program Manager phone: 902-473-7776
Program Administrative Assistant phone: 902-473-8418

Palliative Care Community Consultation – serving patients at home via outpatient clinics located throughout Halifax County and West Hants or in their homes in collaboration with community agencies and primary care physicians:
fax 902-425-6778

How do I access services?

Family physicians and frontline care providers, including care co-ordinators, nurses, pharmacists, social workers and spiritual care providers, all play a role in providing palliative care.

These providers can access support from a palliative care team, providers who specialize in complex care planning and symptom management. Their support can complement the care that patients receive from their primary care provider and other members of the care team, but is not meant to replace it.

Resources for Patients and Families

•Preparing for Death and Dying - A guide for people with life-limiting illness, their families, and their friends(pdf download - English)